Red Suffusion

Somewhere over the US — Winter in the northeast comes with lots of snow and little sun. So while visiting Texas, I made sure to get some sun. Now on the plane, above the clouds, the blindingly bright sunlight pours though my porthole and warms the back of my hands. Sunlight reflected off my hand strikes my face with strong voracity. The suffusion of red from behind my closed eyes recalls the days of swinging on the elementary school playground, legs pumping, head back, staring at the sun through my eyelids.

Unhindered by ignorance, I attempted flight on those swings; a perfectly timed release from the confines of the rubber seat with metal chain links that bent at my will. From the apex I’d fly, or should I say, in the common parlance of my 4 year old nephew, I fell with style. A little projectile trying to break free from the earth’s gravity only to land in the same spot time and again; the limits imposed by my mass, the strength in my arms, the swing’s chain length, and Newton. Simple harmonic motion, the dominance of gravity, the inevitable decay of a 5 year old pendulum, the early failing of a failed physicist. Parabolic trajectories: failure, success, failure.

Later, a summer, 10 years old, and I make another attempt at flight off an artificial rocky ledge at the basin of a damn; my increased gravitational potential energy, the mechanical strength in my growing body, and a running leap off the ledge into shallow water about 3-4 feet deep. But this time I did overcome my limitations, by gradually increasing my distance with each successive leap. Pushing myself further and further away from the ledge into the water by sheer strength, speed, and desire. What became my best long distance jump pushed me past the underwater ledge I had been unknowingly landing and into the true depth of the body of water.

The surprise that traveled from the tips of my submerged toes, expecting to find ground but instead, nothing, then to my head, realizing the error of my assumption and telling my hands to clutch in the increasing darkness brought on by panic and the increasing depth of murky water above me. I found an ankle and pulled myself up, pulling the owner of the ankle down. An underwater melee ensued. Older cousins leapt into action, or so I am told for I only recall finding myself lying on the rocky ledge, with a burning sensation in my nostrils, and a suffusion of red behind my closed eyelids.

I am still awed when the plane leaves the ground and dismayed when it touches down.

Meandering Through Austin

San Antonio, TX — I spent the better part of today in the capital city revisiting some old haunts are exploring some new ones. Driving through the sluggish city streets and congested highways is becoming unbearable. I blame the small-city-living of Rochester, NY where even on the worst days traffic seldom slows to a trickle. However, I still love this city and share the sentiment from Olmstead’s A Journey Through Texas:

AUSTIN.

Austin has a fine situation upon the left bank of the Colorado. Had it not been the capital of the state, and a sort of bourne to which we had looked forward for a temporary rest, it would still have struck us as the pleasantest place we had seen in Texas. It reminds one somewhat of Washington; Washington, en petit, seen through a reversed glass.

Olmstead makes the note that “[t]here is a very remarkable number of drinking and gambling shops, but not one book-store.” which is out of date… or is it? I think of Austin’s infamous nightly college-drunkfest on 6th Street, of which I have the unfortunate honor of once being a patron to, and I conclude there are a remarkable number of drinking shops. But the proliferation of bookstores is definitely different since those days, probably largely due to the University of Texas (my alma mater) being built directly behind the capitol building. A balance, perhaps?

I took plenty advantage of the bookstores. Scored me an Evergreen Black Cat book from Grove Press (circa 1965) of two novels by Alain Robbe-Grillet (perhaps better known as the scriptwriter of Last Year at Marienbad, to which you might exclaim, “Scriptwriter! That film had a scriptwriter!?” and I reply, “Oh yeah!” while busting through the wall a la Kool-Aid man with a handful of matchsticks).

I quote from Olmstead, again and at length:

LITERATURE.

In the whole journey through Eastern Texas, we did not see one of the inhabitants look into a newspaper or a book, although we spent days in houses where men were lounging about the fire without occupation. One evening I took up a paper which had been lying unopened upon the table of the inn where we were staying, and smiled to see how painfully news items dribbled into the Texas country papers, the loss of the tug-boat “Ajax,” which occurred before we left New York, being here just given as the loss of the “splended steamer Ocax.”

A man who sat near said—

“Reckon you’ve read a good deal, hain’t you!”

“Oh, yes; why?”

“Reckoned you had.”

“Why?”

“You look as though you liked to read. Well, it’s a good thing. S’pose you take a pleasure in reading, don’t you?”

“That depends, of course, on what I have to read. I suppose everybody likes to read when they find anything interesting to them, don’t they?”

“No; it’s damn tiresome to some folks, I reckon, any how, ‘less you’ve got the habit of it. Well, it’s a good thing; you can pass away your time so.”

A journey through Texas: or, A saddle-trip on the southwestern frontier; with a statistical appendix.

San Antonio, TX — In the mid-1800s, one Frederick Law Olmstead, a northerner credited with designing/creating some of my most cherished public places (Central Park in NYC and Highland Park in Rochester, NY), took a fact-finding expedition with a companion to the great state of Texas, which had just been admitted to the union after the brutal Texas Revolution against the Mexican army (remember the Alamo, yo).

Olmstead traveled across the state on horseback, visiting many of the budding communities that still exist today with uncanny similarities. He published his findings in 1857, you can find his book on GoogleBooks, it is a page turner–er, I mean page scroller. He reveals many bizarre traits of historic Texas and himself. Never have I learned so much about my state than from this treatise.

And I now find myself traveling about Texas with a fresh perspective…

Texas is still a wild frontier.

In the coming days, I will attempt to document this.

Pretzels and Tomato Juice

Somewhere over the South (in an airplane) — Pretzels and tomato juice on a plane is like the first meal on a camping trip after a day of hiking, so delicious. You swear you’ve uncovered some secret lost art, who’s discovery is only made possible by the fortuitous situation you find yourself in, be it on an abandoned barrier island off the coast of Texas, or seat 18A 30,000 ft in the air. Never have veggie hot dogs or pretzels and tomato juice tasted so good. You pat yourself on the back. Speak at length about the ratio of salt and pepper and surface area. You are a pompous ass and a fool. You are merely reacting to your stomach’s overwhelming and overcompensating gratitude. Any other condition and the meal is a disappointing failure. You are suffering from the crazy delirium of mild starvation; this too, shall pass.

Zeeman Effect in Stellar Spectra

Adapted from H. W. Babcock’s 1947 article (Astrophysical Journal, vol. 105, p.105, 1947) on the Zeeman effect in stellar spectra.